Manufacturers have long sought effective methods for generating consumer interest in products. One known method is providing consumers with coupons or sample vouchers for a product, enticing those consumers to sample the product and, hopefully, elect to purchase the product at a future time.
There are a variety of ways that products are delivered to consumers. In some cases, coupons and samples are manually distributed, either in relatively populated public places, or retail locations. This method has the disadvantage that the coupons and samples cannot be easily targeted to a particular consumer group, nor can the response of consumers to the product be easily tracked. In other cases, coupons and samples are delivered through the mail to consumers, and sample often are accompanied by coupons for retail purchase of the sampled item. This method permits targeted delivery of samples and coupons to consumers of interest; furthermore, the consumers' use of the coupons can be used to trace response to the mailed samples. However, this method is relatively expensive, and the use of coupons by consumers is difficult to track and provides minimal insight into the consumer's reaction to the product. In some cases, telephone inquiries are made to consumers who have received samples, seeking to obtain feedback. However, consumers often resent telephone surveys, and thus response rates are poor.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,370 describes a method of sample distribution based upon retail behavior. Specifically, based upon a consumer's purchases at the register of a retail store, coupons are printed for the consumer, offering discounts on products. The coupons may be redeemable at a retail site or provide a telephone number that can be contacted to request shipment of a free sample to the consumer. Products to be sampled may be selected at random from a pool of available samples, or based upon the consumer's demographics or purchasing patterns. Demographics and purchasing patterns may be identified from a single purchase event at a given location, or from multiple purchases or a mailing address which may be associated with a single consumer through the use of a credit card number and/or loyalty card.
More recently, a number of Internet-based methods have been implemented, exemplified by the web sites currently available at the domain names startsampling.com, freesamples.com and freesampleclub.com. Each of these services provides free samples to consumers that visit the web site and register to participate in sampling.
In the area of couponing, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,184,972, 6,877,661, 6,775,539 and 6,736,322 describe various methods for distributing coupons in an electronic manner, e.g., using a display screen to display a coupon barcode that may be scanned at a point of sale.
Although these methods have been used to some effect, they also suffer from various difficulties. Existing methods of product couponing and product sampling have not been particularly cost effective, and have not provided accurate, reliable, and swift feedback from consumers spread over a large demographic area. Manufacturers continue to have difficulty obtaining product feedback, whether the product is promoted by sampling or couponing. Furthermore, manufacturers lack information regarding the consumer in-store experience and how it can influence product purchases. Furthermore, manufacturers have the concern that electronic coupons or vouchers, because they are not linked to tangible media (unlike traditional paper coupons), present no barrier to coupon fraud; specifically, a consumer is not required to accumulate and present multiple paper coupons to obtain coupon redemptions; a consumer could accomplish multiple redemptions using the electronically presented coupons, with not countervailing controls.